THE world’s premier international AIDS conference returns to Durban next week, 16 years after thousands of delegates walked out in protest as then president Thabo Mbeki nailed his dissident colours to the mast in his opening speech.It was a historic meeting, not only for the global exposure and condemnation of Mbeki’s quixotic and unscientific views on HIV/AIDS, but also for the attention it cast on the urgent need for affordable treatment for the millions of AIDS patients in the developing world for whom the $10,000-a-year price tag was beyond reach."People were dying. We were going to funerals every weekend. No one even spoke of weddings," says Olive Shisana, CEO of the research firm Evidence Based Solutions and co-chair of the 21st International AIDS conference that runs from July 18-22.SA’s approach towards fighting its HIV/AIDS epidemic — the world’s biggest — has undergone a sea change since 2000, and is now widely lauded. The price of treatment has plummeted to less than $100...
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